


Time Will Show that Yours Is a Noble Heart

by tornadodream



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And here we are with soldier training and hand jobs, F/M, Hand Jobs, I'm sorry but the Jon x Sansa tension has to GO SOME WHERE, Jon Snow has wibbly feelings for his sister-cousin, Sansa Stark can be a soldier too, Season 7 spoilers if the leaks be true, TENSIONBOWL
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornadodream/pseuds/tornadodream
Summary: Sansa Stark was a steel-blade of a woman, a force of nature, and he felt like a fool for ever wanting to leave the home they once shared. Winterfell was their home. Even if he had no interest in being their King, he knew there was no running from the wintry plains of the North. He would defend these lands, the homeland of his and his sister’s.A couple months after she they had buried Rickon and he had been declared King of the North, she had said unexpectedly during their morning meal: “Would you teach me to fight, Jon?”--Jon Snow trains Sansa Stark how to fight, to be a soldier. He never meant for it to change him, but the fierce fire in her eyes keeps nudging him further and further towards a trajectory neither one of them can stop. ~*TENSIONBOWL*~ abounds + slow burn + other characters to come. Spoilers possibly for S7 if the leaks be true.





	Time Will Show that Yours Is a Noble Heart

It started with barely a nudge. A door in his heart that had long been shut was slowly pried open. It was not a conscious movement, but one that happened so slowly over time that he didn’t even become aware of it until it flooded into his bloodstream abruptly.

He was distracted by the duty of being declared King. Never will he say that he wanted a part of this. He had wanted to board the nearest ship, sail straight to the Summer Isles and run far away from the world where death kept teasing him. He had come to find that this world was no place for a bastard, no matter how many pledged their name to him. He meant earnestly to start over again.

But then she stumbled into his life, again. It was the bruise-like circles that line her eyes that he remembered the most keenly. Also: her red hair that belonged to a mother they did not share. There was something about the set of her jaw, too. It was a different person, this sister of his, this sister that he had known only in abstract before both of their adulthood. Before, Sansa Stark had been made of fragile-material, her loyalties aligned with the Tully side of her blood. In his weaker moments, he had thought that she hated him, hated the boy who looked like their father but could never share her highborn name. But he found this was a narrative he had constructed because he never knew Sansa Stark. The women she had grown into was too smart, too clever, too fierce to have ever been so simple as to hate a man for the womb he was knitted from. Sansa Stark was a steel-blade of a woman, a force of nature, and he felt like a fool for ever wanting to leave the home they once shared. Winterfell was their home. Even if he had no interest in being their King, he knew there was no running from the wintry plains of the North. He would defend these lands, the homeland of his and his sister’s.

She defended the kingdom of the North in her own way. Her instincts were deceivingly flawless, her political gameplay something he knew that he must consult her on if he wished to keep Winterfell secure. But a couple months after she they had buried Rickon and he had been declared King of the North, she had said unexpectedly during their morning meal: “Would you teach me to fight, Jon?”

He was mid-bite, but he had stopped at stared at her. “What does that mean?”

She shrugged and then took a long gulp of wine. “If the white walkers come to Winterfell, I don’t suspect I will be able to eloquote my way out of their clutches.” A strand of her flaming-red hair fell whispery in front of her eyes. She tucked it away and looked at him sheepishly. “I know I’m not much to look at, but I can be stronger than my appearance may imply.”

“Aye, you are,” he says, measuring his words. “But it’s unnecessary. The walkers won’t make it to Winterfell. And if they do… I promised to protect you, Sansa.”

It was her eyes again that stopped his tongue: a cool fire burned there, one that found a part of him afire in a slow, strange burn. Then, she said, her words pointed, “And how do you intend to keep that promise if you won’t teach me how to protect myself?” When she lifted her wine glass to her lips, he swore her saw her eyebrows raised on him appraisingly.

He frowned directly at her smug expression. He opened his mouth to offer a retort, but whatever clever he might have had to say died on his tongue. It was because she was right, her with her wine-stained lips, her vigilant eyes and sober mind. This strange sister of his has grown an astute mind, a quick wit, one that she used like a weapon against the great houses of the North that were still wary of throwing their support behind the blood of a bastard. Sometimes, her quips had placed them into tense situations, ones where Lord Harald Kastark gripped white-knuckled when Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell, reminded him the the banner who used to swear under, “was the same one that I was violated and beaten under.”

Her temper is what might ruin them all, he thinks. She’s fiery and wolf-angry after all, not all sweetness and frivolity like the girl he had only vaguely known when they had both left Winterfell all those years ago. But it’s a hard learn she’s known for the past years, a cruel and twisted path that life has brought her down. All that pain though, it has blossomed her like a northern ragweed, stubborn, resilient, unkillable. It’s also whetted her mind, made her savvy. There are moments when he had peered into her gaze and seen the storm churning there, a lightening bolt of well-crafted phrase stirring inside her. She made use of this at the opportune moments: a ginger suggestion that rings of wisdom beyond her young years; a gentle touch of her pale, freckled hand on the calloused knuckles of Lord Marsh; the measured advice that she imparts to him when they are alone about how the compassion of Jon Snow could get him killed. 

_You’ve got to quit protecting everyone, Jon_ , she said pleadingly to him. _It will get you killed. And you being dead again will do no good. Not to anyone. Not to me. Not to your family._

Her words rang in his head, and he swallowed hard. Finally, he said, “If I train you, you’ll be just like all my men. It won’t be easy. I will not have mercy.”

She tipped back her glass of wine, rose from the breakfast table and said, “Good. I want none of your mercy, King Jon.”

\--

They met in the courtyard at noon. The sun was a gray, cool rock in the sky. A dusting of snow had fallen the prior evening, but all that was left of it was a muddy slush on the courtyard grounds.

She changed into a pair of thick wool breaches, a dark mohair sweater, and a leather coverlet. Her mass of red hair was knotted on top of her head, and she wore a stern expression on her face. A flashback of Sansa Stark here a lifetime ago came to him: a lady clothed in silk journeying south, full of sunny grins and naive dreams. And the woman standing before him, he could see her different. There’s something regal there, as always, but also a ferocity there that feels fresher, like skin that’s been scrubbed pink and raw.

She faltered for a second before stating, “Do you… Am I… is this the correct dress for training?”

He couldn’t help but stop a sheepish grin from crossing his face. The words felt strange when he said, “You look fine.”

They stood and regarded each other for a long moment, and he suspected his eyes lingered a little too long on the Stark wolf-crest that was etched along the collar of her coverlet. Blinking rapidly, he clapped his hands together, blew in them for warmth, and growled, “First, you have to learn the weight of a greatsword.”

She frowned but followed him to the rack of training swords. They were made of a blunt iron, the tips crisped with rust. And they were heavier, much heavier than the singing-steel of his Valyrian blade. They were the type of sword meant to broaden the shoulders of young men, meant to callous the webbing of each finger. It wasn’t the type made for young women who were nimble fingered in their sewing but not in their swordplay. He hesitated before finding a smaller sword and handing it to her.

“We’ll work first on stance,” he told her before she grasped the sword firmly in her hands. She saw her muscles strain against the heavy iron, but she held it true. The muscles in her jaw clenched, but she said nothing.  

A small wave of approval ran through his veins. The old Sansa Stark would have immediately complained, said that there was _no way_ she was going to be able to hold a sword like this. But the woman in front of him simply clasped her hands around the hilt and flittered her gaze back up to him expectedly.

“Am I holding it correctly?” She asked, her voice low, unsure.

He frowned. “No. Not at all.” The expression on her face didn’t change, but her jaw clenched tighter. He bit his tongue, stopping himself from blurting out an odd, quiet apology. He wasn’t going to take it easy on her; she had specifically asked him not to. So instead, he cleared his throat, took a broad stride over towards her side and laid his hands over hers.

She glanced up at him, her eyes bright with surprise. It dawned at him that this was only one of the handful of times they had actually touched. It was strange still, actually grasping the hands and face of this once-estranged sister, the one whose gaze echoed of the suppressed bitterness of her mother. It had come only a smattering of times before: their first embrace at Castle Black after years of fearing each other’s death; her face and forehead and his lips and palm once Winterfell had been taken; the last time when her ungloved finger pressed warmly against his thigh in the Great Hall after a cacophony of men declared him their King, her voice whispery and warm and slightly intoxicated when she said, “Father would be so proud of you.”

And so it was strange again, this moment of crossed limbs with Sansa Stark. But he blinked it away, pinched his lips into a thin line and refused to let his brain wander into the question that had recently flooded his brain often and with great force: _Why her_ ? Why her of all the children of Ned Stark to find him during the arrival of winter? Why her to be the one who demands that they fight with every ounce of their living power to take back a home that formally neither wanted either of them, the bastard and the Southern girl? And, most importantly, why her - _why why why_ \- is she the one who is finding him in his nightmares, ones full of wolf’s teeth, black-red blood, and red hair tangling in his fingers. It had dawned on him that her presence had become the most consistent thing in his life, and while this realization shook him, he kept it buried like a smoldering coal inside his chest, hidden even while it simmered. To bring it out would start a fire, he was certain, but he wasn’t sure what it would set aflame, and so he swallowed hard and clenched his fingers more surely against her own, tightening and adjusting her grip on the broadsword.

“You want your dominant hand and foot to be the ones facing forward,” He said lowly, his mouth almost against her ear. His chest was flush against her back and her ribcage pressed against his sternum every time she breathed.

He showed her how to hold it above her midsection, the blade at a diagonal angle. The dominant hand steadied, the weaker hand stabbed.

And: “Your smallest finger is the most important.” He tapped her pinkie finger lightly. “Everyone thinks battles are won with grand gusto and heroic speed. But it’s always the small things that matter. It’s always the unexpected; the greatest battles are won with small numbers and great heart.”

She nodded, and her red hair brushed against his neck. They stood together for a long minute, his hand covering hers before he released his grip. Taking a step back, he stated, “Okay, again. Without me. Take the stance.”

And she did, over and over again. He could see her arm muscles tremble and quake, but she said nothing. The sweat gathered on her brow, a fine wisp of perspiration gathered on her upper lip, but she only clenched her jaw, let her body move to his orders. She wanted no mercy for a reason... because she did not need any.

After an hour, when the sweat was dripping from her forehead and beading into her eyelashes, he said, “Alright, soldier. That’s enough. At ease.”

Her muscles gave way, slacking the sword and almost dropping it. Quickly, he came alongside her, his back against her vertebrae; he felt a quick intake of her lungs, a sharp breathe. “No,” he breathed, “No. Don’t ever let all your muscles go completely slack. Remember, the smallest moments win the battle. Keep your arm steady.” He reached to her hand, presses his thumb against the inside of her palm. “The smallest muscles must always be alert, ever vigilant.”

She nodded and breathed, “Okay. Yes. Ever vigilant… I like that.” Turning, her icy eyes looked up at him. A stray strand of copper hair was plastered against her cheekbone. “When do we start learning how to actually fight?”

He couldn’t help a small smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You already have started.” Reaching down, he pushed the hair from her forehead. Her lips parted slightly at his touch, a flash of something in her gaze flittered between them, but he said nothing. He cleared his throat, recoiled his hand, and said, “Tomorrow, noon. We’ll continue this lesson.”

She frowned at him. “That’s _it_ for today?” There was something about her now that echoed of the younger version of Sansa, one that was always greedy for a new adventure, had an insatiable appetite for instant satisfaction.

He laughed shortly. “You won’t be so lackadaisical about it tomorrow - every muscle in your body is going to hurt.”

Her face grimaced into a disbelieving smirk and she rolled his eyes. “You’re being hyperbolic, Jon.”

“I am not,” he said, a grin still plastered on his face. “You’ll want a very hot salt bath tonight. Trust me.”

She remained silent for a second before she said, “I’m tougher than you think.”

“I don’t doubt that at all,” he said, his voice suddenly very serious, the teasing tone gone quickly. “Anyone who doubts your ferocity has something coming for them.”

It was her turn to find a ghost of a smile of her lips: he could barely see it, but it was there, hidden in the lines in her face.

He returned to the stables, wanting to check with the head farrier to make sure that the horses had been properly shoed in case they needed to ride to White Harbor (House Lightfoot and House Mollen had sent some rather passive aggressive ravens, demanding to know if House Bolton land would be redistributed to them).

The farrier - a burly men named Jacque whose face was always red and shiny from hard work and tiny sips of flasked-mead - escorted him across the stables, showing him the new shoes and freshly-cleaned tacking. But then, he said, craning his neck to view out to the courtyard, “Your sister is a fierce one. She doesn’t quit. She didn’t quit, not even when that bastard Ramsay Bolton dug his nails into her.”

He swiveled his head, peered back into the noisy mess that was Winterfell’s broad courtyard. And there she was, standing in the ankle-deep mud, still drawing her sword into the proper position, then lowering, raising it again.

“Aye, she’s grown into a helluva woman,” he chuckled. “Her stubbornness used to drive us all crazy, but it may have what saved House Stark in the end.”

Jacque grinned widely, took a sip of his flask and said loudly, “No doubt! The rumor is that she’ll make her husband take the name Stark. And with a lass as pretty as her and a will as strong as hers, I’m sure she’ll make it happen. I sure wouldn’t refuse if she asked me!” At this, he laughed, uproariously, slapped Jon on the back

His words somehow came strangely into his brain, like someone was trying to pry something open that shouldn’t be opened. The words that he grumbled felt odd in his mouth, like they shouldn’t be there, “She won’t marry anybody. No one will touch her again, not if I can help it. She isn’t cattle to bid off to the highest bidder - she’s a Lady of Winterfell. She’s _your_ Lady of Winterfell, Jacque of House Norrey.” He realized suddenly that all his body was clenched

Jacque laughter dissolved almost instantaneously and his full face became solemn. Then, in a much quieter tone, he said, “Of course, King Jon. I wasn’t… I meant no harm. I have the greatest respect for Lady Sansa. The entire Wintertown does: she saved our homes, after all. She saved our lives, our children’s lives. Without her, Ramsay Bolton would have brought us all to ruin.”

The gravity of his harsh words to Jacque sickeningly sunk into his gut. Shaking his head, he said, “Forgive me, Jacque. You are good man, and we are fortunate to have your talents here at Winterfell.” Slapping a hand on Jacque’s shoulder, he tried to offer a small, reassuring grin. The farrier’s face seemed to soften, but there was a wariness still swimming in his eyes.

He left the stables with a knot in his chest, one that both regretted his tone of voice and one that also had no regrets, because he meant what he said: no one would touch her again, not ever, not this sister of his with a fury of red hair and iron will.

\--

It had become a tradition where they would read the day’s letters together. She knew the houses more intimately than him, had braided hair with the Lord’s daughters and flirted with the Lord’s sons. She had traveled from the North Clans thick-shoulder lands to the tip of the Flint’s Finger, all the while Jon Snow was kept quiet like a secret inside the walls of Winterfell. Catelyn Stark would not travel with her husband’s bastard.

Thus, the politics of these sort of letters from the numerous houses in the North completely foreign to Jon Snow, their new King. Sansa, on the other hand, knew each family’s drama and sensitivities and points of pride. She knew how words worked well together, the power of pleasant semantics, how to flatter properly and how to command even better. Something he would admit freely to anyone was that she was a better leader than him, on any day. He may be able to lead men into battle, but once the battle was won, she was far better at moving the chess pieces around, at making sure that even those who lost felt that they might win if only they will bend a knee to their bastard wolf king and the fierce Lady of Winterfell.

He knocked on her door the evening of their first training. She told him firmly to come inside her chambers.

When he entered, he immediately took a step back. The bath in the corner of her room was drawn, and she was sunken inside it. The water was opaque with bath salts and a thick sheen of sudsy lye soap. Her long crimson hair was draped over the back of the bathtub.

He stood frozen in place, trying to decide how silly he may look if he turned and excused himself in his usual mumbling manner. But she spoke before he could exit, “I took your advice, but I think Laina put enough salt in this bath to make me fully buoyant.” Her head swiveled towards him and she offered a small smile. “And you were right: my body already hurts.”

It dawned on him that the door to her chamber was still open and letting in an icy draft of air. Quickly, he shut the door, turned back to her; an odd sort of lump formed in his throat, but he swallowed dryly and then said, “You cannot say that I did not try to warn you.”

She chuckled lazily and then sunk herself deeper in the bath. “You did, Jon. And you have. You’ve warned me of a great many things, and I’ve been a silly girl and not listened. I thought it might be prudent to listen this time.”

He frowned. “You are not a silly girl.” For some reason, he took one step forward, but stopped himself quickly.

She snorted, “My history would say otherwise. My two husbands might say otherwise.” Her voice became quiet when she said, “Whenever Arya finds me, she would say otherwise.”

Her knee lifted out of the briny water; it was pale and freckled and glowed softly in the crackling firelight from the chamber’s hearth. The words that came from inside of him came from deep inside, from a place he had deftly kept buried but they unearthed so easily and so suddenly: “Arya will be proud of you. She’ll be back, and she’ll tell you so.”

Her face did not brighten at his words. Instead, her eyes scanned his face briefly, calculating. She was good at that, quickly appraising the hidden nuances and emotions hidden inside the twitch of lips, the furrow of brows. It was how she survived, he thought. Her intuition, his dumb luck, both of them both consistently underestimated - it has kept them alive, somehow, these two northern children.

She sunk back down into the bath and said, “So, has Lord Karstark decided to come down from brooding on the gray cliffs or did he send us another long-winded and poorly-elocuted letter about his hesitation to bend a knee to House Stark?”

He smiled lowly, bowed his head to look at the wrinkled letter in his palm. “Unfortunately, it’s more of the latter rather than the former.” Running a finger along the folded seam of the letter he quickly mumbled, “But it can wait until morning. I'm sorry to bother you… I wasn't aware that you in a state of…” he struggled for too long of a moment, his tongue becoming suddenly too thick for his mouth.

She noticed, raised a gingery-brown eyebrow at him. A small breath of laughter escaped her lips before she said, “Oh come now, Jon. Remember how we all used to swimming in the godswood naked as we come when we were still children?”

“Aye, I do,” He said lowly, and then he swallowed thickly. “But we were children then.”

Lifting a hand out of the milk-white water,  she waved her fingers dismissively. “This water has enough salt that you can’t see anything if you don’t look very hard. Plus, trust me: I’m not much to look at. Ramsey was not one to treat me to fine wine and food. I probably look the same now as I did when I was still a knobby-kneed little girl.”

The words escaped his lips before he could stop them, “That’s not true. You’re a woman now, Sansa. It’s been noticed,” and then realizing his words, he added hurriedly, “I’ve got to keep the stable boys from wagging their tongues.”

She laughed. “The stable boys would make lewd comments about a pig in a dress. They’re not a good measure of proper taste.” She glanced over her shoulder and waved her hand towards him. “Go ahead, Jon. Read me the Karstark letter. Unfortunately, I think we’ll have to take a journey to the Karhold and convince them ourselves of their need to be loyal to House Stark.”

He felt his shoulders slump in defeat: she was right. The reluctance and downright aggressive nature of the Karhold was becoming problematic. And the truth was that he, King Jon of the North, did not know how to fix it. But Sansa Stark was better at mincing words and charming men, better at shifting their feelings with a wintery honesty and a Tully intuition.

So he took a couple strides in the room, sat next to the hearth which sat a good several meters away from her bath. He looked deeply into his letter, willing himself to not look at her, although he could not figure out why this was an issue. This was the girl who never seemed to like him, who thought his presence within the Stark family was unsightly. But all he could think about his making sure that no one else sees the large freckle that exists on her right knee, the one that had just risen from the brackish water.

They discussed the letter and its thinly-veiled threats from Lord Kastark, and she ended it with telling him that it would not be convenient for the King of the North to leave his home and pay the Karhold and the Dreadfort a visit, but “it may be necessary, given your dissatisfaction with the current ruling house and its loyal houses.”

She swirled one of her fingers in the bath water before saying, “That will give him something to think about. Bow the knee of we shall be there with several thousand men to convince him that his indifference is troubling. And Lady Mormont might be there as well, which should cause any man to shake in his boots.”

Finally, he looked up at her, grinning. “She will having them begging for mercy, I guarantee.”  

Her wry smile met him like a shake in his gut. And then, it dissolved and she said, “She’ll be a fine woman someday. A good alliance. Maybe someday our houses will join?”

It took a minute for her words to sink in, and for some reason it hurt like a real wound. He couldn't figure out why but he said slowly, “There's no need to talk about joining houses. House Stark has plenty of loyalists.”

Her eyes met him and she said slowly, “True. But it can't last forever. And good marriages are worth grabbing ahold of. Trust me: I've seen bad marriages.”

The silence was strange and thick in the room. His fingers circled tightly against the letter.

“There shall be no more bad marriages in the Stark house,” he growled and then stood, glared down at her. “And that's a command from your King. No marriages. I won't allow it, not now, not when we are still trying to ascertain who is our friend and who is foe.”

Her eyes were a storm of ice and strange storm. “I'm quite done with marriages, but that's a foolish thing in permanency.” She sighed and and said, “So when you feel the time is right, I'll be there to support you, Jon. Just… please. Make sure he's kind.”

His voice sounded feral, guttural, wolf-like, “There will be no marriages. We are done discussing this.”

Their eyes stood locked. Something inside him broiled, a strange emotion in his gut. She had a fire behind her icy eyes, one that flared on occasions, one that had been given to her from her mother. But then, she nodded and said, “This bath water is getting cool.”

Shaking his head, he rose from his seat, trying to smother the iron-hot burn in his gut. “And you need rest. Tomorrow, we begin learning how to parry.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means you’re going to have to learn how to block my attacks,” he said with a wry grin. “And you did ask for no mercy.”

She groaned, submerged herself more fully in the water. “I am beginning to regret my desire to have you train me.”

He laughed and before he could think otherwise, he reached down, placed a hand on the crown her head. Her hair was only slightly damp, and he was close to her now, could see an off-white outline of her body through the bathwater and he was suddenly very aware that he had crossed a line now. Her eyes shifted slightly up at him, her lips parted slightly into a very small “oh.”

A nudge, there, he felt it, a small opening in a heart that once lay cold and unliving in his chest.

Quickly, he removed his hand, bid her a good night, and quickly strode out of the room, cursing that the strange burn near his sternum would not release.

“Enough,” he growled, curling his fingers into his palm so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “Enough.”

\--

In the following weeks, the strange grip in his gut did not go away, try as he might. And so he compensated for this sudden lack of control with a chilliness in their training - with a kind of cold-hearted ferocity - that he didn't know he was capable of.

He was sure she noticed, but during the training sessions she only gritted her teeth, set her lips in a grim line. Her toughness was resolute and immovable. When his blade met hers over and over again as he learned her each defensive stance he knew, her arms shook, sweat beaded on her upper lip, but she never complained. Gone was the once frilly-tempered girl he once knew as Sansa Stark - she had emerged evolved into the fiery stubbornness that was always buried inside of her.

What suprised him most was that she was one of the quickest learns with the blade he’d seen: better than Arya even. She lacked the finesse and patience of the bow. Her arms were still far too weak for the mace and ax. But the sword seemed to be an almost seamless extension of her own body, she could find his blows almost perfectly even when he decided to strike at random, to change up the training patterns. It was as if she could read her opposing party easily, could see where their eyes flittered to before they struck, could see their footing becoming uneasy, could foretell the way the blade would fall based on where her enemy’s had turned their hips.

He saw her talent and the strange feeling inside of him grew. So he pushed her harder, extended their training sessions to well into the freezing night. The yard was so cold one night that she slipped on an icy patch on the ground, and he caught her with the broad side of his training blade, smacking her hard against her forearm.

She yelped and then flung up her shield, smacking the blade out of his hand. Quickly, she clamoured to her feet, assumed her stance on the attack and glared at him viciously, her eyes wolf-wild.

He stood breathless, watching her pant heavily. Her arm was bleeding only slightly, but he was sure that a great bruise was bubbling underneath the skin.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “Forgive me, Sansa. I… I never meant to harm you.”

Her eyes were still wide and flashing when she huffed, “Surrender, Jon Snow.”

He blinked, took a step towards her. “What? Did you hear me?”

“I heard you,” she growled at him. “Do you think the white walkers will ask for my forgiveness? Do you think Cersei Lannister will grovel for my pardon?  We are at war, Jon. I need not your forgiveness. I need your surrender: I will have it. I am wounded, but you are unarmed.” She took a step closer, the shield covering her body and the tip of her blade pressed firmly against his chest, against the death-scar that spread across his upper ribs. Her eyes met his and her voice was firm when she said, “Surrender.”

The flame inside him bursted into some strange and wild blaze. For some reason, a desire to reach across the space and grab her face came into his mind. The words that he uttered next felt strange, like what he was saying meant something bigger than what they were, “Yes. Yes, of course. I surrender.”

When she lowered the blade, a triumphant grin spread across her mouth and he couldn’t help but smile, but all he could think was _you have my surrender, Sansa Stark_.

-

She still met him for their daily letters even during the days where the training was the most brutal. The Karhold was still refusing to give the knee, the Flints were eager for war with the Crownlands, and even House Magnor of Skagos had sent notice that they were willing to join the fray if the King of North would visit their frozen shores.

“There is too many damn houses,” he muttered one night as he rifled through the piles of letters, decrees, and requests piled around the library. “Too many damn houses and too many Lords and they have too many opinions.” He leaned back, glared into the fire crackling in the library’s hearth. “I’m tempted to board the nearest ship to Lys and tell them to figure it out themselves.”

She laughed, rose from the table and strolled over to where they kept a decanter of wine. She poured them both a stout serving. When she returned and handed him a glass, he risked a rare look into her face. Her lips was cracked and bruised from a particularly intense training - he had caught her shield in an upswing with a full-powered smack and it had found her face with a bloody impact. Every part of him wanted to drop his blade, stop the entire session immediately, but the look in her eyes had warned him against this, the way she sucked her blood-covered lips made the inside flame rage. And so they continued until there were calls for supper.

Leaning against his desk, she retrieved one of the letters and read it, eyebrows furrowed. He had found that he enjoyed watching her face as she thought: her intelligence shone bright and sharp in her features and it made him proud to share blood with such a quick-witted creature.

"House Magnor is a house of wide-shouldered soldiers. Even their women are a foot taller than most men, and they fight alongside them." She lowered the letter and gently tapped on it. "It would be good to be in their good graces, now that winter is here and Cersei has laid claim to the Iron Throne." Raising an eyebrow at him, she added, "Because it you aren't aware, the Lannister Queen has no good feeling for House Stark. Or, in particular, me. She'll come for my head eventually, no doubt."

Her words were so spoken so matter-of-factly, it took him by surprise. He glared up into her face before saying sternly, "Don't say that, Sansa. I won't let her touch you. I won't let her get near you even."

Her eyes traveled to his own and the strange fire he found inside them was almost feral in its ferocity.

"Let her come," she said, her words measured, calm. "Let her come for my head. I will have hers instead. For all that she has done to our family, to Rob, to my mother, to our father, I shall have her head and destroy what is last of Cersei Lannister's name."

A shiver escaped down his spine. The world had changed her, everyone could see that. But now her bravery was cool and even-tempered, terrifying even.

"If that's what you want, Sansa, may it be," he said, his voice low. "But revenge is something best left to the gods."

Her gaze shifted towards the fire. "There is only one god, Jon, and her name is death." She tipped back the glass of wine and started to take her leave. But before she reached the door, she said over her shoulder, "And death will have Cersei Lannister someday. I just pray it is by my hand."

The door closed with just a slight thud. He stared blankly at where she had retreated and suddenly knew what the training had been about, what this had all been about.

In the end, he was breeding treason: He was training Sansa Stark to rid the lifeblood out of the Queen of Westeros. It might be the end of both of them, but he swallowed a gulp of wine and prayed resolutely that the one and only god would guide his hand true, would guide him in making this Tully-eyed woman-soldier a succinct and efficient queen-slayer.

\--

They trained with the bow in the waking morning hours. If he was being honest with himself, she was truly shit at it. But he wouldn't give up, and he could tell that she wouldn't either; her lips were fixed in a pursed, stubborn line.

She let fly another arrow and it glanced off the edge of the wooden target, smattering to the ground, useless.

She huffed loudly, turned to him with frustrated fire in her eyes. "I'm terrible," she grumbled.

"Aye, you are," he said, and he couldn't help a wry grin from forming on his lips. Her face pinched together and she reached over to give him a hearty smack. He laughed and then retorted, "Oh, now you strike your King for speaking the truth?"

She looked like she was trying hard to swallow a grin. "No matter your title, Jon, you're still my brother and I'll reprimand my brother when I feel like he's being an arse."

The word _brother_ rattled in his head. He blinked at her and nodded his head as if agreeing with her statement. Yes, of course she would not suffer foolishness from any man any longer. Of course, she would always remain his stubborn sister. Of course, of course, but he found that he was just getting to know Sansa Stark for the first time in his life and she continued to surprise him at every turn. Sometimes he was amazed that he lived with this person for so many years and truly never knew her. _Brother?_ He was sure he didn’t fit comfortably into this role at all, not with Sansa.

He pulled the tie holding his hair closer to his scalp, then positioned himself behind her. Reaching around to hold her elbows, he took a step closer so that most of his body was flush to hers. This proximity with her was starting to feel easier, but he couldn’t understand why his lungs ached inside him every time she got so close he could smell her lye soap.

Sliding his hands down her arms, his palms rested against her hands. He curled his fingers against her, adjusting her grip. “You’re too tense,” he said lowly. His face was so close to hers that his lips brushed her ears. “And you’re overthinking all of this. Loosen your muscles.”

Her body relaxed only a fraction and he sighed. “That is not enough, Sansa. I know you are always awaiting for the worst to happen, but you have to be confident with your bow and arrow. Make it an extension of your own body. You must have the fire of immortality in you when you yield this weapon.” His mind followed down a dark path to another red-headed woman he once knew: _Ygritte,_ her muscles limber and lethal, the best archer he’d ever seen, her mouth always stubborn against his own.

He wondered if she understood her words, if she felt her thoughts, because Sansa’s body relaxed noticeably, her breathing steadied and when she inhaled, the curved small of her back pressed more fully against him.   

“That’s better,” he breathed and then he guided her hands so that her bow was drawn tight. “Keep your target firm in your mind. Release only when you exhale.”

They waited a couple seconds, her ribs against his spine. He felt her arms tremble against his own from keeping the bow tight and aimed. And then, lowly, he whispered, “Now.” And her fingers released underneath his own, the bow snapping and the arrow singing through the air.

The tip found the target with a healthy crack. It wasn’t a great shot - it only found the outer edges, but it stuck firmly and truly. A proud smile found the corners of his mouth before he could stop it, and next to him she let out a tiny squeal of happiness.

Her eyes caught his, and they were shining, clear, purely happy for the first time in so long that he thinks it may have been lifetimes ago. Something odd flipped in his stomach and, instinctively, he wanted to step away from her, to pull away from her body as if burned by her skin. But he couldn’t, suddenly finding himself unable to move. His fingers were still against her own and her spine was pressed against his chest.

She wasn’t moving either, and her eyes drop to his still grinning mouth. A snowflake alighted on her eyelashes, and he found he couldn’t look away at it.

His entire body burned in some sort of smoldering feral fire.

Reaching up, her thumb hooked around a dark curl that had fallen into his eyes. Her fingers wrapped the strand around his ear, and for a second he was sure that she would uncoil away from him, peel herself away from his grasp. But instead her palm rested gingerly against the side of his face. Something in her eyes changed, the ice-blue turning into a thundercloud of sadness and melancholy.

Her voice was so quiet and hinged with something that made a piece of his heart shatter:  “Why have you been kind to me?” Her thumb reached out, brushed the corner of his mouth. “I don’t deserve your goodness, Jon Snow.”

The nudge this time was more insistent, pushing fully into him. It was visceral, immediate and he couldn’t stop himself from wrapping his arm around her waist. Her shape moved easily underneath him, curving into the spaces where his body dipped and ebbed. The tips of her fingernails clung to the hair on the nape of his neck and the crown of her head bowed into the crest of his jaw. He realized that this is their first embrace, true embrace, since they had met once again at the Wall. He had held her face, she had gripped his hand, but this woman who was his sister-Queen had stayed fairly off limits to him, if only in his mind. And now that she was so close he could feel every hitch of her breath, could smell the soapiness of her hair, could feel the tips of her lips against the exposed skin near the crest of his collarbone.

“You deserve kindness, Sansa,” he said before adding, his voice so low he wasn’t sure if she heard: “You deserve more than than that; you deserved to be loved.”

He was sure she didn’t hear him, but he couldn’t be certain: Sansa Stark was no longer the reactionary, fragile girl she had once been. Her fingers just tightened against his neck and her face tilted up so that the bridge of her nose was pressed against the chilled lobe of his ear.

Every ounce of air in his lungs hurt. He couldn’t figure how to breath again, was afraid if he did breathe that she might shift away from him immediately.

But then the courtyard exploded in the early morning with the sudden yelps of Tormund’s still-inebriated guffaws, “Oy! The King of da North found another tender fire-headed lass already?”

His face burned and he quickly released his grip on her, spun on his heel to face the wild-haired free folk. Tormund’s cloak was loosened around the collar and the belt, and his red hair almost stood on end from his head. The free man’s face was grinning largely until he saw Sansa Stark’s pale face behind him; Tormund’s expression dissolved and turned suddenly serious. He smoothed down his hair hurriedly and then stumbled over his words, “Apologies, Sansa. I didn’t recognize you with your trousers. I, um, I meant no harm.”

Sansa’s face, first surprised, turned into a wry grin. “It is of no problem, Sir Tormund. I’m sure it’s hard to keep Jon’s red-headed lasses straight.” She unfurled herself completely from him and then started striding across the courtyard. “I think I shall have to pardon myself from further training this morning, King Jon. I need to have some conversation with Maester Loyse about the poor architectural state of the library’s foundation.”

He watched her leave, her red hair almost a stain throughout the gray of the courtyard. Finally, he found his breath and the air inside his lungs felt tight and angry. He gulped a couple gasps of breath, and then he turned soundlessly to Tormund. He couldn’t gauge his expression, but in response to the devilish smile on Tormund’s face, he replied gruffly, “You are a dead man, Giantsbane.”

The wildling guffawed uproariously and then slaps a meaty palm against his back. “You’re a funny one, Jon Snow.” And then, he swiveled his head to look back and forth across the courtyard, taking in their relative solitude: Winterfell was still coming alive, with both the livery and kitchens snow-quiet in the early morning hours.

Finding the courtyard empty, Tormund turned back towards him and mumbled lowly, “Ain’t no man who’s been lonely afore going to judge you, Jon Snow.”

He glared into this face. “I’m not lonely. If I’m anything, I just want to be left the hell alone.” And then he murmured, “And I am not sure what you’re implying, Tormund Giantsbane. But if you so utter one ill word about my sister, I’ll cut off your pecker and feed it to the dogs.”

The unflappable grin on the wildling’s face didn’t seem deterred. Instead, Tormund raised a bushy eyebrow and said, “I ain’t implying anything that you haven’t already thought yerself. Love is hard and there ain’t no shame in it. And I know you like that red hair.” And before he could stop the wildling, Tormund made his exit from the courtyard and yelled behind his shoulder, “And my pecker would feed your dogs for days. Huge, Jon Snow! Huge, I tell ye!”

He couldn’t help but find a grin spreading across his face despite his best intentions. Quietly, he cleared the evidence of their archery practice. He paused slightly at the one arrow that had found its way into target, grinning larger despite himself.

 _Love is hard_ , he thought, pulled the arrow firmly out of the target. _Why is love always so hard for you, Jon Snow?_

\--

Later that evening, they were drunk.

It was a surreal experience, if he was being honest. This fire-headed woman beside him used to be a child once not long ago. But here she was, deciding the fate of House Stark in the heat of a roaring library fireplace. They had cracked into some of the worst casks of Winterfells’s beet-wine reserves, and they held their noses as they consumed copious amounts of the foul-tasting liquid.

“I’m sorry to be lewd, but this is just shite,” She slurred before taking a large swig. Her mouth was stained an absurd shade of red. Gone was the training clothes that she had worn earlier: instead she wore a pair of smartly-pressed breeches and a green velvet scalloped blouse that dipped to just under her collarbone. The pale skin exposed at her neck and shoulders was mottled with a thin flush, and he found that he couldn’t look away from how her shoulder blade curved perfectly into her the crook of her neck.

He laughed at her comment, took a gulp of the wine. “You'd think with the weather as it is in the North, they would figure out how to make something that warms the bones and doesn't like taste like utter piss.”

She drained the rest of her drink. “Never mind it though. After Lord Karstark’s newest correspondence, we both deserve to get a little knockered, even if the libations are rubbish.”

He nodded and stood up, reached for the wine pitcher and poured her another glass. She made a movement as to act like she didn’t want any more, but when he pretended to ignore her, she didn’t hesitate to take another sip.

“So then,” he started and walked across the room and leaned against the windowsill, “that settles that? We’re both off to the Karhold to convince Harrion Karstark that unless he would like to be hostage to the Iron Throne again, he best swear fealty to Winterfell?”

She tipped back her head to look at him, but while doing so, the sleeve of her shirt loosed and fell slightly down to expose the freckled top of her shoulder. Something inside him raged and his mouth suddenly felt dry. He pulled a large draught from his goblet and averted his eyes, cursing himself for some reason that he could not ascertain.

Finally she shrugged and said, “Father always said that a Stark should remain in Winterfell, but I think our good Lord Harrion needs extra motivation.” She raised herself from the chair and leaned against the windowsill herself, her wine glass perched precariously between her fingers. “And you’ve heard what all the servants say: we look exactly like father and my mother. It might be good for him to think the ghosts of Ned and Cat Stark are coming to take stock of him.”

He blinked, her words shaking him with a shock of surprise. Suddenly feeling very daft, he stared at her blankly. “The servants say… _what_?”

Her voice was slurred when she chuckled and said, “Oh, come off it, Jon. Don’t tell me that you haven’t heard how much it spooks all of Wintertown?” She tipped the rim of her glass to his in a toast. Her giggle bore testament to her drunkenness when she added, “Apparently we are Ned and Cat Stark incarnate, come to get vengeance for their deaths.”

His blank stare evolved into a frown and he made a move to grab her glass. She was quicker than he had assumed, or maybe he was drunker than he had thought. 

There was something coy on her face when she mumbled, “Did you want this?” She waved her goblet in front of him and a tiny drop of wine sloshed out of the glass and landed on the shelf of her collarbone.

Her voice echoed in his brain: _Did you want this?_ He found his face burning, found he was struggling to look away from where the tiny drop of bright red wine lay against her pale skin. “Yes, I want that,” he said, but his voice sound like a growl.

Sansa stopped moving, her chest caught into a hitched breath.

“I want that glass,”  he clarified quickly, shaking his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “You’re drunk, Sansa.”

Her laugh was more of a huff. “ _You’re_ drunk,” she snapped back. “So if you want my glass, yer going to have to take it from me.”

There was a pause between them for a second and then he went for it, reaching across the space towards her. His aim was sloppy, his reflexes deadened by far too much wine. She was right: he _was_ drunk. And it showed when she drew back and all he grasped was her forearm. His fingers curled around her elbow, and he looked at her through his eyelashes.

She was giggling now, for once a girl again. Her body contorted to try to escape, but he held firm and so she only squirmed further towards his body.

He had been close to her lately, all those cold mornings in the courtyard. He had grown used to the smell of her hair, the curve of her waist, had felt her fingers turn from slender and soft to tough and callous-strong. But there was something different to the feel of her now, the way the front of her thigh grazed the outside of his hip, the press of her ribs against his chest. Every part of his body flamed against her own and his mind was swimming.

“Give me the glass,” he mumbled, his face so close to hers that he could see every coy inch of her grinning mouth. “Sansa, you’re going to be useless tomorrow if you don’t stop drinking. So, you’ll need to give me your…”

Suddenly, she interrupted, her finger suddenly over his lips. She shushed him quickly, the smile still on her face. He stopped talking immediately, watching her face.

“Did you hear that?” She said, her voice whispery-quiet.

They were quiet for a long second. At first, he heard nothing and merely shook his head. 

“Listen,” she whispered again.

And then, he heard it, the sound so long and thin it was almost impossible to hear. But then, it came, the grunts and moans of someone in the courtyard outside the window. He knew that sound, primal and raw, and his face flushed immediately.

Sansa, however, seemed nonplussed. She raised her eyebrows and then leaned so that she could see out the window. He hesitated, and then released his grip on her and looked out the window as well.

The moon was bright that night, clear and white and full. The couple below them was what he thought was the one of the scullery maids who had a thin mouth but pretty wide eyes and also a wildling boy who showed promise with the bow and arrow. Their tryst was largely shrouded by their furs and coats, but their movements betrayed them: her against the wall, a stockinged leg curved around the boy’s waist, his face buried in her wave of mahogany hair. The maid’s moans filled the courtyard and as the lights flickered on within Winterfell’s guesthouse, he suspected that him and Sansa weren’t the only ones who noticed the pair’s rather loud affair.

He sighed, ran a hand over his face. “I’ll go tell them to stop. They’re waking all of bloody Winterfell.” Drowning the rest of his wine, he turned to leave but was stopped when she grabbed his arm. Her grip surprised him in its strength, and he blinked up at her face.

Her eyes were glazed over with wine, but she peered at the couple outside with a coquettish gleam. “Let them be,” she said, finally. “They look like they’re having… a good time.”

He raised an eyebrow, but she paid him no mind. Her gaze was focused outside, and she took a step closer to the window. Her arm was still pressed against the palm of his hand.

“You are a nosy one, Sansa Stark,” he teased, but he couldn’t look away from her wine-stained lips, couldn’t look away from the coy sparkle in her eyes, could help but feel a small raging fire burn coal-hot in his gut. He was drunk and he knew it, but the usual gravity he felt towards the wolf-queen of Sansa Stark was now so strong he felt like it might crush his sternum.

She leaned her head against the wall’s window edge and said, “It’s interesting. When I was a girl, I always dreamed of having some kind of torrid affair, fantasized of being swept off my feet and ravished by some handsome knight.” Slowly, she took a small sip of wine and continued, “Twice married and I’ve never been loved. Or at least not like… _that_.” She shrugged, “I’ll guess it is in the gods’ plans for me to only be treated cruelly by husbands.”

And there is was, the final push. No longer a nudge, he felt his body move with such force like someone had shoved his heart into his throat. Her face was forlorn and flushed and there was something so tragically sad in her gaze that his body responded in a haze of wine-muddled action.

He grabbed her face gently, his thumbs pressed lightly against her cheekbones, and pressed his mouth against hers. Her lips are slack, still against his, as first as he kissed her upper lip then lower his chin to pull softly on her bottom.

For a brief second, a thought passed through his mind that he had just ruined everything, that it was all unraveling in his hands. That the shove that had been pushing him towards this moment was all a lie, was his undoing.

But then, she moaned, leaned up into his mouth, her lips firm against his. Her fingers gripped tightly against the folds of his shirt and drew him closer.

Her body was unsure against his but earnest. He leaned closer against her and her mouth opened underneath him and his tongue licked against her wine-stained lips. She hummed, pulled his hips flush against hers.

He took only a breath to growl against her mouth. “Itn’t right for a woman like you to never be touched proper.”

Her teeth bit into his bottom lip and then she mumbled, “Show me. Show me _how_.” Then, she drew his mouth further towards hers.

The tips of her nails, shorn short from the weeks of training, dug into the flesh near his collarbone. The wine hammered in his brain, a strong current against the riptide of reason inside his veins that said, _You must stop_. He thought himself one to be a man of a measure of honor. There was no honor in this, this he was sure.

So why couldn’t he stop? He couldn’t, not for all the honor in the world.

Something small yet persistent had dug its way inside Jon Snow’s heart and he recognized it in that instant: a very real and definite love for Sansa Stark had burned itself into him. It was a part of him really. As much as his marrow stood up his frame, this tiny and fierce almost-sister was inextricable from his own body.

Her mouth tasted less like the wine they had been drinking and more like a gritty metallic of blood. The tip of her front teeth nipped at his tongue and a very small groan passed his lips; he should have known that Sansa Stark would be a quick learner, could easily ascertain the movements of their mouths.

When she gripped his fingers in his own, a thrill shot up his spine at the very strange fact that their callouses matched. A swordsman grip, a thick pad on the middle finger, a strip of rough skin against the outside of the palm. She was a mirror to his own wounds: two northern children who left and found each other again and came back, surprisingly, with the same kind of scars. And now, their marks were being made together. Marks and scars and wounds of fighters, of soldiers.

Slowly, she moved his hand downwards, across the swell of her collarbone and further down to her ribcage. When she pressed him lower, his eyes shot open and he drew back. He watched her face carefully. Her own eyes were pressed shut, a furrow dimpled near her eyebrow.

Lower still. The wine became a growl in his mind. When his finger brushed the velvet fabric covering the upper part of her thighs, he found her mouth to keep the thin hiss of air from escaping his mouth.

When her fingers coiled around his own, brought them into the crevasse in between her legs, she bit harder on his lip as if to keep him from drawing back. But there was no risk of that happening, even as she pushed his hand past the seam of her pants and against the warmness of her core.

 _Show me_ , she had said, he knew he had heard that through the lusty fog of his brain. He had heard this kind of request from Sansa Stark before, when she demanded he show her hands how to move to fight, to battle. Now, she was asking for something very different, but somehow it felt the same. It felt natural almost, like they were following a logical line of reason, like this was a reasonable thing to request of him.

His thumb rolled against her first and then rested gently against the center of her. Her hand was firmly on top of his own, an almost authoritative grip. When he dared a glance into her face, her eyes were bored into his own, a churning riptide and a lick of flame behind it all.

And then, she began rotating her grip, slowly, a firm circle. It dawned on him quickly that this wasn’t her first time making these motions, that she had found her own body before. For some reason, this made the middle of him flame and when he stepped forward, he found her mouth again. She touched her tongue delicately to the outside of his lips, and he moaned, “Sansa… what are we…”

She drew back from him, the fire in her eyes now a blaze. “Are you going to make me do all the work, _King Jon_?” The last words were spat at him, mostly teasing but with only a tinge of impatience, the old Sansa Stark edging into her tone.

Some kind of growl emerged from inside his chest and suddenly he was pushing her against the wall. She grunted a little as her back made contact with the stone, but her eyes stayed on his, a black current of determination.

Her hands were steely against his own. He began rotating his fingers against her, slow and a little furious. But then, her eyes became hazy, a glaze over them. She tipped her head back slightly, biting her lip as if to keep a tiny moan from leaving her mouth. But her attempts didn't work, and as smothered noise left her, her pressed further, pressing his thumb firmly against her most sensitive spot before sliding one finger inside her.

Sansa bit down on her lip, hard this time. The tips of her shortly-shorn nails clenched tightly against his neck. He closed his eyes, imagined the half-moon shapes that they would leave against his throat, the scars they may indent into his skin for years to come.

And then, he hooked his finger, reaching inside her slowly. It only took a second before her body hitched against him and her mouth this time couldn’t be kept shut. A small, almost-imperceptible gasp of “ohhhhh” emitted from somewhere deep in her chest and then past her now-swollen lips where a pearl of blood blossomed from the place where she had bit it.

“Jon,” she groaned, nails digger deeper into the thin flesh of his neck. “Jon, what… what are you doing?”

For a mere second, he froze, eyeing her frantically. The wine hammered loudly in his thoughts and for a second he tried to claw his way back to reality. What _was_ he doing? There was something in his brain that was trying desperately to halt everything laid out before him, something trying to knock against him and object, to scream and kick and yell him out of the trajectory he was going towards.

But it was of no use, he thought. It was too late, something has nudged him further down. He was suddenly sure of his own doom, so he pressed his finger closer to _that spot_ inside her and said quietly, “You wanted to learn, Sansa Stark. Don’t you? Don’t you want to learn?”

Her fierce eyes found his, and she only nodded stiffly. He waited for a long moment, the two of them pressed together, and then he began moving her fingers again. Her hips began to sway, finding the rhythms of both of their hands, her chest rising and falling against his own.

A cavilling part of his mind whined against this, against the way her body pressed against his, the way his hand thrilled against the warm - and now very wet - middle part of her. There were notions of _honor_ riding alongside him, at every second trying to break through a fog of desire and wine and something very distinct: a very small notion of love. Not the love that he had always felt in a vague sort of way for Sansa Stark, his father’s daughter, the shining pride of her Tully mother. He had loved her like one loves a fine piece of art. Admired. Respected. Loved as one loves something they consider emotionally untouchable and lovely at the same time.

But how this untouchable girl became this pillar of ferocity and cool strength and unwavering devotion, he did not know. How he had found this untouchable sister so much like him - Jon Snow -  that it nearly took his breath away, he had no notion. But he found her, and a small flower of coal-hot love had risen inside him, nudging his heart each day until now. And now here they were, bodies moving together, her so close to the edge he had already passed over that he could feel every muscle in her tense.

Her fingers dug further into his throat. He wasn’t sure for a second if she was choking him or he simply couldn’t breathe for the sake of seeing her flushed face and feeling her rolling pelvis.

“Oh gods, Jon? Can I?” And he knew what she was asking, but she didn’t wait for any sort of permission because he felt her uncoil, her whole body shuddering against him. Her fingers curled against his own, keeping him against her while her body rocked against him for the few remaining seconds. When he studied her face, he could only see the whites of her eyes. A thin pool of blood puddled from her bottom lip, staining her mouth a metallic red.

They stood, heaving against one another. He hadn’t realized that he’d been been holding his breath, but air filled his lungs suddenly like hot iron, thick and steaming.

She leaned her head back against the stone wall, and he could see the sweat that plastered a strand of her crimson hair against the curve of her clavicle. Then, slowly, he unraveled his hand from her body, took a step back and held his breath, waiting for her to say anything, do anything.

She licked her lips, wiping the blood away with one leisurely move of her tongue. Then, she swiftly reached down to her wine goblet and drowned the rest of it.

Straightening her blouse, she looked up at him, offering only a determined look. “Shall I meet you at the same time tomorrow in the courtyard?”

He blinked, her words moving to him slow as oil. “Tomorrow?”

She didn’t miss a beat when she said, “Yes, tomorrow. Or have you decided that my archery skills are not as shite as you claim they are?”

It dawned on him quickly that Sansa Stark was all business once again. Had she always been, had all her thrusting hips and warm mouth and beguiling gaze been nothing more than a soldier learning how to move her hands once again?

He swallowed thickly and then said, “Oh, no. Your archery is still absolutely horrible: I cannot concede that.” Then slowly, he added, “Of course, if you need a day off, that would be fine.”

She shook her head, piped up quickly, “I cannot accept your mercy, Jon. I _will_ not.” Reaching over, she poured him another glass of wine and said, “We break the fast at first light tomorrow. Then, we train. I do not plan to be without weapon in hand if White Walker or Lannister come knocking at our door once again. No matter the hangover I’m sure we’ll both nurse tomorrow.” She winked at him, gave him a short grin and then left the library in a fluster of red hair and flushed, freckled skin.

He watched her go, his mind spinning. A wave of nausea lowered itself into his gut for a mere second and then it passed; he convinced it was the alcohol. He was never a man to stomach too much drink, and so he ignored the rest of his full wine goblet and settled into a chair near the library fire. He couldn’t bring himself to walk past her chamber. And even though his eyelids felt heavy, his sleep was tussled with images of fingernails in flesh, of red hair pressed against stone walls, and the inevitable feeling that he was falling further and further down a cliff, alone maybe.

\--

He trained her the next morning. Her hands were steady, even if they guided the bow wrong.

“You need a living target,” he said, finally, after another round of arrows either found the outside edge of the bullseye or littered the area around it. “You are better at reading people than estimating battlefields.”

In response, she frowned at him. He searched her face frantically, trying desperately to mask the forlorn expression that he was sure was painted across his brow. She held his gaze, but her eyes were indecipherable to him. He could see nothing there that spoke of the evening prior, nothing of sadness or regret or shame. But he could not blame her, because try as he might to stir those same emotions, those feelings of remorse, it was of no use. Rather, every time he envisioned her blood-and-wine stained lips, his whole body quivered. It shook him with a passion that tingled down to his bones.

Nocking her bow again, she finally said, “Something tells me that the targets will come, eventually. I trust that you’ll take care of a few yourself.” She let the bow go, let the arrow sing. The head of it smack-clacked against the very edge of the bullseye. Again, she strung the bow, let it fly. It clattered in the hay next to the wooden target and she sighed extraordinarily too dramatic at its trajectory.

Chuckling, he reached over and grabbed ahold of her chin with his forefinger, thumb, and palm. Swiveling her neck towards him, he grinned wryly into her face. “You can’t expect to be perfect at everything, Sansa Stark.”

She apparently couldn’t quit a small smile from notching into the corner of her mouth. But quickly, she tore her face from his grip and mumbled, “I’m far from perfect at anything. The gods have gifted me with nothing more than the ability to learn from my scars.”

Then time, she let the arrow loose and it smacked so hard against wooden target, the wood splintered, shot in the air.  

After she spent the last of the arrow, they trudged over to the target and began collecting the arrows once again. He bent, picked one up that was littered amongst the hay-covered ground. She walked over to him, reached out for what seemed the arrow. But, instead, she reached for his hand, caught it mid-grasp, clutched it tightly with her fingers. She pulled him towards him, and the shock of her unexpected strength caught him unaware, so much so that he couldn’t stop it when she craned his neck back with the force of an angry kiss, her mouth a muscle against his own.

He could barely register the touch of her lips before she drew back, a fierce expression painted across her face. Then, with a furious whisper, she hissed at him, “I’ve been apologizing my entire damn life for not being the lady that silly stories and songs told me I should be. I’m done with all that, so don’t be sorry, Jon. Don’t be sorry for _anything_ you’ve taught me. Don’t you _dare_.”

Holding her gaze for a long moment, he growled back, “I’m not. I’m not sorry, Sansa. I _can’t_ be sorry, no matter how much I try.”

Her eyes searched his, and the she curtly nodded. “Good. That’s good.” Then, she marched back to the spot in front of the target and said, “Then, let’s keep training.”

\--

They were four moons into training when the letter comes from the Dragon Queen.

“She yearns for bent knees,” Sansa said, eyeing the letter that was sealed with the Dragonstone crest. “She’s crossed the sea with dragons to take back the whole of Westeros. She wants the North as well.”

All he could do was stare blankly ahead.

“The North will not kneel.”

Running a hand through his hair, he turned to her before hissing, “And what choice do we have, Sansa? We’ve can’t have Dragons as enemies in the South and White Walkers in the North!”

Her eyes were icy and void of emotion when she said, “Nevertheless, we do not kneel.”

He sighed, leaned against the bleached wood of the weirwood tree that stood tall in the center of the godswood. Sansa had insisted they go for a walk, if only to avoid the inevitable advice that was going to come from Sir Davos; he could tell that she wanted a moment for them, just them, before the Onion Knight offered his practical and nonemotional advice.

As they walked, they reviewed the letters that had been flown in this morning. Amongst them, the black paper and gold ink of House Targaryen. The shock of these house colors caused rumbles even amongst the free folk, and when he had run his fingers over the three-headed dragon seal, a shudder ran through his spine. The last Targaryen King had known no mercy, and he feared that his daughter may be of similar mind.

Sansa seemed to have her own suspicions about the dragon queen. He had trained her to be looking for the military advantage and her time in King’s Landing had made her so politically astute, she deserved to the Hand of the greatest King. And yet she would bend no knee, and he could not figure out why: she was no fool, she yearned for no death by the hand of neither Targaryen or Lannister or White Walker.

“Sansa?” He asked, his mouth feeling around for the right words. “What would you have me do? Maybe this Targaryen - what is her name? _Daenerys?_ \- will join forces with us, help us fight the walkers to the North. She could crush Cersei if the rumors of her armed men are true. We can’t leave the people of North to the doom of their death that could be prevented.”

She blinked, as if she was coming out of some very deep trance. She sucked on her teeth for a moment, and he could see the wheels in her brain churning furiously. Then finally, she said, “The Dragon Queen brings an armada of Yara Greyjoy, who claims the Iron Islands as her own, but her Uncle holds it now, in name and in land; when she starts losing men, she may find her men shrinking back to their homeland where they will swear fealty to the true King. She brings a pack of Dothraki, a horde of men only familiar to deserts and the sun, not ice and the treachery of winter. She brings a slew of brainwashed soldiers who may or may not feel an ounce of loyalty to her, who may run and abandon her when they see the White Walkers march their way towards them.” Sansa placed a hand on the weirwood tree trunk and then continued, “Together, _yes_ , I’ll concede they are a force not to take lightly. But break them apart? They are weak, an amalgamation of men who want very different things.”

He stared at her, not sure what to think, not sure how to argue with her. And, the more he turned her words over in his head, he thought: _she’s right, dammit, she’s right_.

This Dragon Queen, although she had a world of men at her disposal, could lose her entire army so easily - most likely _would_ lose them so easily - that it was like watching someone fall down a cliff in slow-motion.

But yet, they themselves had so many enemies already. The Vale, led by Littlefinger, was feeling more and more angst at staying in the forever winter of Winterfell. The houses of the North were practically begging the Vale army to stay now. And although he wanted nothing more than to wring Littlefinger’s neck because of the way the man leered towards Sansa Stark at any given moment, it would not do. The risk was too great, and Sansa would have none of it.

It was as if she read his mind when she said: “You must go, we know that.” Then, clearing her throat, she walked to him, gingerly took his hands in her own and said, “But, nevertheless, I have to ask, or else I will hate myself forever: Don’t go. Please, don’t go, Jon.” Her voice crumbled in her throat, and when her eyes found his, all of him broke, his insides twisted, and he wanted nothing more than to capture her mouth in his own. But then, she said, “Now, don’t be a fool. Don’t listen to me. _Go_. Go but bend no knee. See if this Dragon can see logic, can see the greater war is not against the men of Westeros, but the men of the dead.”

And then she kissed the corner of his mouth, almost-chaste but fierce at the same time. She drew back and then muttered, “And you come back to me, Jon Snow. You better come back to your _home_.”

He watched her march out of the Godswood, her red hair behind her, a stain on the white world, a stain on his heart that he wished to never scrub away.

**Author's Note:**

> More characters in chapters to come. This was supposed to be a ficlet, and now it is a monster. I AM SORRY.


End file.
